If You've Been Waiting For Another Descent Game, Descent: Underground Is Finally Here

The Kickstarter campaign only just got over the line, but fans who have been holding out for a true Descent sequel finally got their wish. And if you don't mind paying for the ignominy of Early Access, then tomorrow's going to be a good day for you.

Descendent Studios -- bit of a pun, that -- say the game will remain in Early Access "through the first part of 2016" and that as of tomorrow, you'll be able to enjoy three maps, two guns, three ship types, three missiles, bot combat, offline flying and online multiplayer through a rudimentary matchmaking service.

There's obviously a long way to go between now and release: Descendent are hoping to have full VR and controller support, mod support, player-lead clans and organisations, career progression, singleplayer story missions (how that differs from a traditional campaign is unknown) and "a rich and complex metagame" whereby multiplayer matches have an impact on the general in-game universe.

The devs ran a stress test almost a fortnight ago with some of the game's alpha backers, which gives a pretty good idea of how the game handles. Keep in mind Descent isn't and never was a hardcore flight sim -- it was more of a shooter where you happened to be controlling a ship. Think Terminal Velocity, not Elite: Dangerous.

" Think Terminal Velocity," Hey, if they can remember Terminal Velocity, then they sure as hell played the Descent series. Loved skimming across the surface in TV, and was the first game I bought a joystick for.

If any one thing about The Last Jedi has been contentious -- actually, no, strike that, everything about The Last Jedi has been contentious, including its approach to space combat (the Holdo Manoeuvre, anyone?). But according to one fan and critic, Rian Johnson's epic actually makes space combat in the Star Wars universe more explicable, not less.